Casse Gameplay Guide

[Exosus]

I realize "blitzing" is usually looked at negatively around these parts but I've found it much easier to take a settlement or two right away with your starting army. You will be in the green without having to disband anything (I disbanded my ship though)
The battles will be a piece of cake. The enemy will sally forth thinking they will crush your army but a well placed battle line and well timed chariot charge by your FMs will change all that and the settlements will be yours with minimal casualties.
But then again I'd rather play on the offensive than the defensive which seems to be the exception around here. To each their own style I guess.

Yea I tend to agree with him. Going out and besieging a town (my recommendation would be the one with the Isle of Darkness since you get the very nice school in it while you wait for more governerships to open up) leaves your first major battle at a significant advantage over waiting on the enemy and then sallying forth. To start, a victory means that you gain a settlement instead of simply failing to lose your (only) settlement. Secondly, you will have a few turns of besiegment before they attack, meaning that they will have lost a few soldiers to starvation. Thirdly, you will be on defense rather than offense *and* they will typically bring units out to attack in small numbers, for whatever reason, allowing you to destroy them piecemeal rather than having to charge out into a full force. Lastly, you will have saved yourself probably something like 10 turns of sitting behind your walls waiting for the Eleutheroi to grow weary of your existence.

If you suffer excessive casualties in the capture of the first city (I didn't) you can always take your "break time" there instead of at your capital, giving you double the income and a buffer in case a major Eleutheroi incursion occurs. If you don't, simply continue capturing cities until you do run out of people and then take a construction break. This leaves you at a significant advantage when you finish the construction phase and begin full-scale expansion.

[Atraphoenix]

My Casse tactics ;

-never disband your army (even your ships),
-never attack rebels when they outnumber you,
-leave the Britannia, migrate to elsewhere,
-capture a town and then revenge and take the land that was taken from you.
-I land the army mostly on Ireland, the capital mostly falls but I do not care.
-but I hate slow MP (movement points) so I play with my mod.


In fact, that is a good beginning of a good AAR.
I have to finish mine first

P.S. Disbanding armies is not for me, I am a warrior I prefer losing them in battles instead of disbanding.
BTW everybody has different choices.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

Personally I prefer an extremely slow start with the Casse - there's no hurry, since no other faction will seriously try to conquer Britain for at least 100 years.

I start by focusing on defeating the two Elutheroi armies in the open field, and building up my starting town.

Once the two Elutheroi field armies are destroyed, I go raiding the enemy towns in Britain - attacking them just with my family members. An army composed of chariots and absolutely nothing else - no foot soldiers at all! I attack enemy towns with a much smaller force, so they sally out to fight me. Then I attack with my chariots, throwing javelins, charging at any unit that looks vulnerable, and pulling back out of melee when in serious trouble. When I'm out of javelins and have lost about half my chariots, I withdraw from the battlefield so my family members don't get killed. I don't care if I 'lose' the battle, since it's not a 'real' battle, it's only a raid! A 'raid' means 'attack, then run away.' Then on the next turn, I retreat my army back to my home town to recover.

Being all family members, my chariots replenish automatically, free of charge. Then I go raid the enemy town again.

I continue raiding in this way until the enemy town's garrison becomes weak enough that I can get a chariot unit through the main gate (pursuing a routing enemy unit) and reach the town square! Once I can do that, I can actually conquer the town by slaughtering routing enemies. A town conquest, without using rams or foot soldiers!

[Atraphoenix]

BTW I hate those chariots ...........
any levy spearmen can kill them easily after march of time do they get another type of bodyguard unit other than chariots?

[athanaric]

BTW I hate those chariots ...........
any levy spearmen can kill them easily after march of time do they get another type of bodyguard unit other than chariots?

No. Though you could try and use Rycalawre as their MoT reformed Bodyguard. That would make some sense IMO.

[Titus Marcellus Scato]

BTW I hate those chariots ...........
any levy spearmen can kill them easily after march of time do they get another type of bodyguard unit other than chariots?

You're probably trying to use them as heavy cavalry.

They're not heavy cavalry, they are skirmisher cavalry. Designed mainly for throwing missiles rather than melee. Because there aren't many chariots in a unit, and only one man in each chariot actually throws missiles, it takes a long time for them to do a lot of damage that way. But chariots do carry massive amounts of ammunition - they almost never run out of missiles.

If you want to charge with chariots, fine, but pull them out of the melee as soon as they stop charging. Or double-click on the opposite site of the enemy unit so the chariots just charge right though it and out the other side.

Chariots are also very effective en masse - using three or four family members in one gigantic heaving mass of rumbling chariots! Most enemy infantry units will rout immediately on being hit by that lot!

[Ludens]

Chariots should indeed not be used as heavy cavalry, but they have two features that skirmisher cavalry do not have. Firstly, they improve the morale of nearby allies and frighten nearby enemies. They are also excellent at disrupting enemy formations. Their defence may be low, but they have multiple hitpoints, so as long as you avoid getting bogged down in a melee you should be OK. Think of them as budget-elephants.

[Tollheit]

Do not attack with chariots!

Turn skirmish off, leave auto fire on, and run them right through your enemies!
Again, do not attack!
The chariots' area effect + javelins will take care of the enemies without actually attacking them.

Crush through the enemy line and get some distance asap.

Then turn your chariots around, rinse and repeat!

Even better when you have two FM. Send them through in short succession, or from both sides simultaneously, and the enemy will be driven before you soon enough. Yay fear effect!

This works best with some chevrons, as chariots have little armour, but multiple hit points.(as Ludens said)
Meaning base defense sucks, but every improvement counts double, in a way.